Rescued
by Ancalime8301
Summary: Holmes' regrets: that he failed to protect Watson, and that he took so long to find him.


Written for the LiveJournal community Watsons_Woes for their July Writing Prompts challenge. Amnesty prompt 03 was:_ **Words to live by:** Use one of your favorite quotes in your story._

I used "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will" -Hamlet, Act V, Scene II

This story is also based on my hc_bingo prompt "septicemia/infected wounds"

Part of my Spencer-verse (primarily canon with a few details borrowed from the Granada TV series-in this case, I've borrowed the fact that Watson worked with the police while Holmes was away). Follows "Tormented"**.**

* * *

_Rescued_

I will never forgive myself for failing to protect Watson after that final letter arrived. He would say that we couldn't have known it would be the last letter, but I should have realized. And I can only hope the great heart of John Watson will forgive me for taking so abominably long to find him-that he should be stolen away under my very nose and missing for an entire week is inexcusable.

I knew as soon as I entered the sitting room that fateful morning that something was amiss, for there was a muddy footprint on the carpet by the door and ash was scattered across the top of Watson's desk. The footprint matched none of our shoes, and my ensuing investigation of the rest of the room found the dropped letter.

I was at Scotland Yard even before Lestrade arrived for the day. I told him what I deduced had happened based on the limited evidence and he immediately agreed to provide men to look for Watson as soon as I could provide some direction on where to look. In the meantime, the patrols would keep an eye out for any sign of Watson.

From the very beginning, the problem was a lack of sufficient data. I pursued all the usual routes of investigation, but the information I gleaned was not enough. The absence of Watson and the absence of clues were maddening, and I knew that every hour's delay would mean terrible things for Watson. The words of the now-burnt letters were seared in my memory and I had no doubt that Henry would delight in fulfilling every last one.

The breakthrough came in the form of another letter, addressed to me. Henry mocked my failure to find Watson and taunted me with a few clues as to his location. He no doubt thought the meager hints weren't sufficient to pinpoint his location, but he was forgetting that I am Sherlock Holmes.

I had their whereabouts narrowed to a half mile stretch along the river before I finished reading. It rankled that I had to rely on the man's idiocy in order to find Watson, but my fear for Watson's wellbeing reduced any other feeling to irrelevance.

Every policeman that could be spared was sent with me and Lestrade to the waterfront, and we spread out to search the ramshackle buildings collapsing wearily toward the river. I had just stepped inside one structure and paused to allow my eyesight to adjust to the dim interior when I heard a groaning that sent shivers up my spine.

I charged ahead of the sergeants accompanying me, Watson's revolver cocked in my hand.

They were in a back room, concealed somewhat by stacks of barrels. As soon as I had a clear shot at the figure holding the gun, I took it, and he slumped satisfyingly to the ground. Shouts rose up around me, calling for the others, calling for a doctor, but I had eyes and ears only for Watson.

He was alive, and for a moment that was enough.

I hurried to his side and untied him from the barrel; Henry's body was sprawled next to him with a hole through his skull. Watson began to topple sideways as soon as the rope was released, so I grasped his shoulders to keep him steady. "Watson," I said, shaking him gently.

One of his eyes was nearly swollen shut and the other was badly bruised, but they both opened slightly. "Holmes," he slurred, then coughed weakly.

His hands were still tied behind his back, so I freed them as I asked, "How are you doing, Watson?"

He did not seem to hear me at first. I repeated the question and he mumbled as if talking to himself, "Divinity that shapes our ends . . ."

"There's no need to talk about ends, my dear fellow," I said. It sounded like he tried to chuckle, but it turned into coughing instead.

Then a stretcher and a doctor arrived and I stepped aside, seeing everything and wishing I didn't.

.

Watson's injuries were more extensive than I knew at the time of his rescue, and even those I had known about were enough to make me want to kill Henry several times over. Watson had been whipped, had been beaten, had been strangled nearly to death at least three times. Several fingers and bones in his feet were broken, one shoulder was dislocated, his jaw was fractured, one ankle was badly twisted, numerous ribs were cracked, and deep bruises covered nearly half his body.

Since Watson's hands had been bound behind him, the whipping had also wounded his arms and hands; these lacerations and those on his back were an angry red at the time of his rescue, badly infected as a result of the dirty conditions. For a week afterward there was a significant chance that the infection would spread through his blood and endanger his life.

And if the damage inflicted by Henry wasn't enough, the cold Watson had suffered prior to his ordeal developed into a pneumonia that choked him whenever he tried to speak or take a deep breath.

I remained faithfully at the side of his hospital bed until he was lucid enough to look at me and croak, "You look awful, Holmes."

"You should look in a mirror," I said fondly. His bruises were fading into the livid green stage and looked rather alarming to anyone who had not seen him before.

He peered at his bandaged hands and asked, "How many stitches?"

"None yet. They were too badly infected." The danger of a blood infection had passed, but the infection still lingered in the deeper wounds. Watson's numerous injuries and his illness besides had nearly overwhelmed his body's ability to heal itself.

He coughed a little. "Pneumonia?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "I felt it coming on. Between that and . . . everything else, I was almost convinced this would be the end of me."

I knew I should let him rest, but I had to ask. "When I found you, you said something about divinity shaping our ends. Do you remember why?"

"I did? Well, I guess that's not surprising, it was stuck in my head that entire time. It's that line, 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will'. I found it comforting to think all that might still end well . . . and you came and I'm still here, so in the end I suppose it did."

By the end of this monologue, he was slurring his words and his eyes were closing. I patted his arm reassuringly. "Yes, it did."

The next day I smuggled Spencer into Watson's room. The joy on his face as Spencer licked his forehead was well worth being escorted out of the hospital and asked not to return for several days.


End file.
